Date-stamped : 06 Nov95 - 22:29 Tour Match, Border v England Buffalo Park, East London. 2,3,4,5 November 1995 ====> Prematch, 1 Nov 95 Smith playing mind games to regain touch Crawley has most to prove as batsmen chase places in England`s team for first Test writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins in East London ALEC STEWART seldom shows anything other than a cheerful face to the world but with innings of 94 and 101 not out behind him in Soweto, he leads England in their second first-class game of the tour against Border today in a mood of sunny optimism. He and five of the other six specialist batsmen in the touring team are likely to find a true, easy-paced pitch and an attack lacking star quality, with one possible exception in fast bowler Makhaya Mtini, 18. Only one batsman is likely to be eliminated for the first Test starting a fortnight today, and since the bowling attack is far from settled, this is an important game for everyone. Mike Atherton`s rest has been planned for some time and has noth- ing to do with the slight twinge of a hamstring in Soweto. The captain is pleased with events so far and less bothered than some by the indifferent form of two of his most experienced Test players, the much-discussed Devon Malcolm, who is not playing here, and Robin Smith, who is. Malcolm will no doubt enjoy a short break from public gaze. He bowled energetically in the nets but his determination to do things his way will be tested again next week in Kimberley. The two other fast bowlers who have made genuine match-winning contributions for England in the last year, Dominic Cork and Dar- ren Gough, have operated so far in relative obscurity. Gough`s performance in particular will now come under closer scrutiny, since Cork and Angus Fraser are the only more-or-less certain members of the attack for the first Test. Mike Watkinson was due to play here, alongside Richard Illing- worth, who has not only confirmed his bowling improvement with his 11 wickets in two games, but who looked to be batting as solidly as anyone on excellent net pitches yesterday. Smith spoke with the voice of experience about his disappointing start to the tour Watkinson, however, has turned an ankle and will miss the game, leaving Graeme Hick to operate as the off-spinner, batting, if you please, at No 8. John Crawley, still the one with most to prove to Ray Illing- worth, will open the innings with Stewart, with Mark Ramprakash at three, the position he remains favourite to claim for the Tests, Graham Thorpe at four and Smith at five. Smith spoke with the voice of experience about his disappointing start to the tour, during which four innings have yielded a mere 49 runs. "The more I play the more I realise that 60 per cent of this game is in the mind. I feel good in the nets although I`ve taken longer than I expected to get used to batting in a visor. I`ve never been worried about being hit in the face and just be- cause it`s happened once doesn`t concern me in the slightest. "What does concern me is my form and that I am right when the first Test comes round. This is the biggest tour of my life and if I don`t score 500 runs in the series it will have had nothing to do with my preparation or dedication." It is significant that Smith should set his heights high and also that he spoke instinctively of England as hundreds, for Illing- worth and Atherton to countenance his omission at Centurion Park. There is even more speculation here about South Africa`s Test team. Daryll Cullinan needs some runs here to be certain of his place but Border`s other established batsman, the captain Peter Kirsten, is, at 40, now an ex-Test player, despite his hundred at the weekend. He made it after Shaun Pollock, Peter`s 20-year-old fast-bowling son, had taken seven for 33 in the first innings for Natal. Kir- sten describes Pollock junior, the likely replacement for Fanie de Villiers, as a He has a similar description for Mtini, who plays his first first-class game today after his successful tour of England with South Africa Under-19s. Mtini, lean and rhythmic, comes from the hills of the Ciskei behind East London where, for generations, village has played village for an unusual prize. Each team brings a sheep: after the match they are slaughtered and barbecued, the winning side eating one and a half, the losers a half. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com) ====> Day 1, 2 Nov 95 Ramprakash and Crawley pressurise the old guard By Christopher Martin-Jenkins in East London First day of four: England 218-4 Scoreboard JOHN CRAWLEY batted throughout the 69 overs of an abridged first day of England`s four-day match against Border at Buffalo Park; Mark Ramprakash played the innings of the day, 70, with nine fours and a six; but Robin Smith was out third ball for nought. From those three facts a piquant situation is developing. It is not an unfamiliar one on tours, that of the established Test player being out of form and of two willing aspirants pressing their own cases much more strongly. Although Crawley`s 87 not out in East London was the longest in- nings and Smith`s by a distance the shortest before he was leg- before, half-forward, the most significant batting performance was Ramprakash`s. Things could yet change, given a second innings here and two in Kimberley against stronger opposition before the first Test, but such was the authority with which he batted yesterday the Middlesex number three also looked entirely the part of the au- thentic England first wicket down for which selectors have been yearning so long. It will boil down, therefore, at the start of the series at least, to a choice between Smith and Crawley. If Crawley can translate his sober but eminently sound innings into something a little more commanding today, he could make it very difficult for Ray Illingworth and Mike Atherton, who must decide whether or not to back Smith`s proven big-match tempera- ment. Crawley made very few errors yesterday in a single-minded effort in which discipline and restraint were the keynotes on an insipid pitch. His frighteningly severe haircut has given him the appearance at the moment of an ascetic monk or, worse, a harried convict: the desire to establish himself as a Test batsman has taken from him, temporarily, that natural fluency as a strokeplayer which can make him so delightful to watch. Alec Stewart won the toss and set off confidently against the willing and lively Makhaya Mtini The pitch was no ally to him, however: the pretty, wristy turns to leg were ending up in the hands of fielders meanly placed by Peter Kirsten for much of the day to save the singles and induce the airborne mis-hit. The flowery off-drives seldom pierced the field. All the more admirable, therefore, that Crawley should have re- fused to give himself away and he battled through, as he had at Soweto, while others came and went. Nor would one want to suggest a completely dull or attritional innings: by the end of his 275 minutes he had hit nine fours. Alec Stewart won the toss and set off confidently against the willing and lively Makhaya Mtini, who needed a quicker pitch than this to reward his energetic action, and the straight-backed Brenden Fourie, a dead-ringer for Terry Alderman in his short- striding run-up, but without the deadly swing. Play had been delayed until after lunch on a beautiful morning by rain of dramatic intensity the night before. Stewart gave Mtini a distinguished inaugural first-class wicket when he played a lit- tle early off his hip, as he is wont too often to do, and was caught at short midwicket. Ramprakash and Crawley then added 120 together and after getting away with one early leading edge off Fourie, Ramprakash was the first to flourish. He hit nine fours in a fifty reached off only 69 balls, including a quick-footed dance to whip the off-spinner, Emslie, wide of mid-on, followed at once by a flamboyant force off the back foot. After tea came a fierce drive from well down the pitch to deposit a ball from Howell, flat left-arm orthodox, full toss into the advertising board at long-off. There was a puny crowd to watch the stand develop on a rapidly clouding afternoon. The few scattered about two high and grassy banks appreciated the quality of the batting, however, and perhaps had mixed feelings when Ramprakash drove Fourie hard to extra cover, one of seven men posted in a stifling ring. Graeme Hick, so much less wooden to the eye now that Edrich has got him both standing and playing a little closer to the ground, began with two magnificent pulls off Fourie and looked in good order until edging a cut into the gloves of the impressive wick- etkeeper, Steve Palframan, who was standing up to Frans Cronje. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com) ====> Day 2, 3 Nov 95 England need action to help Test selection By Christopher Martin-Jenkins in East London Second day: no play due to rain THE need for four sunny days in England`s last first-class match before the first Test, against South Africa`s A team in Kimberley next week, is becoming imperative. Further rain in the breezy, humid climate currently prevailing here on Africa`s southern coast, prevented any play yesterday on the second day of the match against Border. By the time that the skies lifted, the accumulation of moisture from the storms of Wednesday night and further rain on Thursday night and Friday morning had saturated a ground with only a lim- ited amount of sophisticated drying equipment. This has far-reaching implications. John Crawley will have little time in which to turn his important innings on Thursday into a major performance of the kind which might guarantee that he re- tains his Test place and Robin Smith may possibly not get a second innings to press his counter-claim. Dominic Cork and Darren Gough, young men full of energy and enthusiasm but in need of a good, long bowl, are in danger of playing in the first Test, if they both do, short of the work which, like horses before a big race, cricketers need. It is never a simple task to plan a tour itinerary, especially on the part of a visiting side beholden to a large extent to the home cricketing authority. As Doug Insole, for many years chair- man of the Test and County Cricket Board`s international commit- tee, has repeatedly pointed out, it is a question of give and take. If England want touring teams to play as many counties as possi- ble in their lengthy visits between April or May and August or September, he and those who plan return tours - the man at the sharp end is the cricket secretary, Tim Lamb - have to be prepared to play, for example, a few more one-day internationals than they may think is desirable. Ray Illingworth had a hand in the planning and, despite this frustration, he says that he was and is reasonably happy with the itinerary which emerged. "They went along with us in not having any one-day matches in between the Tests, which was important. The one real worry is that so far we`ve had slow and low wickets and it`ll be difficult if we change surfaces completely at Centu- rion Park and the Wanderers and get pitches which are quick and bouncy." It would not be the first time that the preparatory stages of an England tour have had only a passing relevance to the Tests which follow. In this present game the damage, however, is not all one-way. East London and its surrounds is a growth area for cricket and they were hoping for decent crowds and an attractive match. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@*ogi.edu) ====> Day 3, 4 Nov 95 Crawley digs in before bowlers press advantage - Scyld Berry Third day of four: Border are 153-6 in reply to England`s 351 IN East London`s museum resides a dodo`s egg. It would have made a suitable image for the home side if the second of the four days of this match had not been lost to rain, for then Border`s chances of averting a defeat by England would have been equally extinct. In the later stages of a long day England`s seamers took a grip of the game with some fine and purposeful cricket. If it was not breathtaking stuff, that had already been supplied by their tour manager, Raymond Illingworth, who gave another press conference which did not err on the side of discretion. When asked about the laborious form of Robin Smith, who has hit 49 runs in five innings on tour, Illingworth gave a frank opin- ion, as always, a trait which can be considered commendable in this age of official deceit. But a batsman who is by nature short of self-confidence would no doubt have appreciated something more tactful than the manager`s statement: "I personally think he has a few problems, but at the age of 32 you`re not going to change them." Why, it was immediately conjectured, did not the same qualifica- tion apply to another 32-year-old in this England party, Devon Malcolm? Smith`s less-than-perfect idiosyncracies as a batsman have to be accepted, it seems, but not Malcolm`s as a bowler. After this game England have one match left before the first Test at Centurion Park, and it will perforce be a full Test trial. Graham Thorpe is expected to return on Tuesday from his unfor- tunate visit to England, and will play at Kimberley against South Africa A. Malcolm will play too as he needs "hard bowling". But Smith is not even certain of a game there, after John Crawley`s hundred yesterday. Crawley, 87 overnight, crawled to his first century for England, satisfied with singles in this exercise of self-denial, never risking anything flowery outside off stump on this pudding of a pitch at Buffalo Park. Ntini yesterday was far less open-chested than he had been on his nervous opening day Towards the end of his 359 minutes Crawley allowed himself to walk across his stumps a little to whip a few more flowing runs to leg, before missing something straight from Border`s version of Terry Alderman. The Lancastrian is at home on the damper, slower pitches of this coast as it was in nearby Port Elizabeth that he scored his 286 on an A Tour. It is England`s misfortune that such a pitch is of little use for preparation for the drier and harder conditions of the veld, where the first two Tests will be staged. From the 9.30 start to the six o`clock close when five of the al- lotted 120 overs had to be abandoned for bad light, the wind blustered. South Africa may be on the same latitude as South Aus- tralia, a lively cricket venue yesterday, but the weather at present and the coastal scrub are more Tasmanian. The umpires wore shirts and sweaters, but not coats. Some of the Border players, however, have acclimatised to cool and damp to the extent that they only wore their shirts. These are little more than advertising hoardings on the back, whereas their sweaters do not promote the local beer. But at least administration here is not so tasteless that it paints logos upon the outfield. Jack Russell scored two-thirds of the runs in his stand with Crawley which ended shortly before lunch, and he tussled in- terestingly with Makhaya Ntini, the 18-year-old Xhosa boy brought in for his first-class debut. Ntini took the second new ball, now available after 80 overs. "Useful. Dangerous," Russell pro- nounced afterwards "he moved the ball around." Ntini yesterday was far less open-chested than he had been on his nervous opening day, and he maintained his nippiness with never- waning heart. For anyone who had only picked up formal cricket three years ago it would have been an impressive performance, let alone for someone brought up by his grandmother alone in an im- pecunious village 40 miles inland from here, without secondary education, yet suddenly transplanted to a pukka school in East London on a cricket scholarship. The boy was regularly encouraged with shouts of "come on, come on Makha" and Peter Kirsten, the home captain, stood alongside at mid-off. When Ntini bounced Darren Gough - and anything bail-high was an achievement - Gough hooked to fine leg even more unerring- ly than he had directed Ambrose`s bouncer in the Headingley Test. Before embarking on his bowling, Dominic Cork got his head down for 150 minutes of concentrated middle practice: he is not just a biffer. During his innings the crowd might have swelled to as much as 200 - adults paying only five rand, or a pound for en- trance - of whom no more than a dozen were black. Not even the Barmy Army has arrived in any force yet. The South African Crick- et Annual refers to "rain and Border cricket`s other indigenous enemy, an apathetic public." Only the ex-Derbyshire duo of Kirsten and Daryll Cullinan held together Border`s batting which was better than minor county but not championship standard. Dominic Cork took wickets in both of his spells, using the cross-wind for his outswinger initially, then changing ends and bringing the ball back off a short run. Once Kirsten went, England moved in rapaciously, even a shade too vocally in their appeals. England may not be fully refreshed, they may be short of acclimatisation here come the first Test, but Cork will make sure they do not lie down passively. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@*ogi.edu) ====> Day 4, 5 Nov 95 England try winning instead of practice By Christopher Martin-Jenkins in East London Final day of four: England (351) beat Border (166 & 132) by an innings and 53 runs THE last time England won a first-class match on a tour as easily as they defeated Border yesterday was almost four years ago, in New Zealand. They went on to win the Test series. With Dominic Cork, Mark Ilott and Darren Gough contributing in almost equal measure, England won by an innings and 53 runs at Buffalo Park, despite losing a day and a half to the weather. It was, for all the relative weakness of the opposition, a most heartening and impressive performance on what remained a very slow pitch. The 1948 Australian side in England made a deliberate policy of winning county games as quickly as they could in order to get as much rest and recreation as they could. For England at this stage it is more a case of expanding the available time to extract as much practice as possible, but for any touring team there is still nothing like a win (unless, for some perhaps, it is a dame). It could easily have been decided, after Cork and Gough had swept through the last four first innings wickets in the first 13 overs, to eschew the follow-on and bat a second time with a view to trying to play Robin Smith into form. Quite rightly, the virtue of getting the players into an aggres- sive and confident frame of mind was made the top priority and Smith had to be content with a practice in the middle after the match had been wrapped up in mid-afternoon. The bowlers were in greater need of that testing under match con- ditions, for which there is no substitute. If they continue to bowl with the same purpose and control as they did yesterday, better batting sides than Border - South Africa for instance - will find it no harder to get on top of them. Dominic Cork spoke afterwards of being a part of a unit which knew what it was doing. "We all bowl a good line, don`t give much away and like to attack," he said. This was certainly true of himself, as his match analysis of eight for 81 suggested. Gough managed to combine his usual variety with a good line and quickish pace As usual he bowled very straight: five of his eight victims were bowled or lbw. He might, too, have bowled his ex-Derbyshire team-mate, Daryll Cullinan, who played the one innings of author- ity but who had his off stump grazed without the bail dislodging. Gough managed to combine his usual variety with a good line and quickish pace. There was no point in anyone trying to bowl flat out on a pitch as dead as a dodo, an observation not entirely inappropriate since the East London museum preserves what is be- lieved to be the only extant dodo`s egg. Mark Ilott both swung the new ball and, according to Alec Stewart, reverse swung the old one. Ilott should certainly not be written off for the Tests, given his success here two winters ago. Richard Illingworth was tidy, and Peter Martin the one fast bowler to miss the boat, but he never got a chance to bowl with the wind. It was England`s first innings win on tour since the one against a New Zealand Emerging Players XI at Hamilton in January 1992. This one was more easily accomplished only in that the umpires were prepared to give lbw decisions (six yesterday, but it was that sort of pitch). Only Peter Kirsten on Saturday, and Cul- linan, in an accomplished 134-minute innings of 55 yesterday, looked truly a first-class batsman. Cullinan`s had been the first wicket of the day when Border resumed at 153 for six. He was lbw to a ball of full length from Cork, having spent 99 balls over 21, whereupon Cork and Gough finished the innings in only 10 more balls, one a no-ball from which Graeme Hick held a brilliant catch. The advantage of having two other fast-bowlers, five in all, was apparent. Ilott and Martin were able to take the new ball com- pletely fresh. Much stronger opposition awaits, but the combination of players, managers and coaches is working well. Nothing ever goes completely smoothly on a tour, however. Devon Malcolm faces a decisive match against South Africa A on Thurs- day, having had some fluid drained from his suspect right knee last week. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@*ogi.edu)